"One of the most powerful and moving works of Eastwood's entire career"

As anyone who has ever watched a boxing movie (or actual boxing, I suppose) knows, one of the secrets to victory is to fake out your opponent. If you can lull him into thinking that he knows exactly what you are going to do, such as making him think that you are going to hit him with a left to the body, and then pull the opposite move, a right to the jaw will suffice here, the combination of surprise and impact can lead to an immediate knockout if done correctly. Clint Eastwood’s new film, the boxing melodrama “Million Dollar Baby”, operates on much the same principle. For the first two-thirds, it is a smart, sturdy effort that seems to be heading in one direction. At a certain point, however, Eastwood pulls a stunning out-of-nowhere switch and changes his film from an efficient piece of entertainment into not only one of the very best films of the year but one of his most powerful and moving works of his entire career-either as an actor or as a director.

Eastwood stars as Frankie Dunn, a one-time expert cut man who now divides his time between managing the kinds of boxers who will either amount to nothing or abandon him at the first taste of success and running a run-down gym with long-time associate Eddie Dupris (Morgan Freeman). One night, after another fight, he is met by a young female boxer, Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), who asks him to train her. He refuses. She insists that she is pretty tough. ”Girly tough ain’t enough” is his response. However, she is tougher than he thinks for the very next day, she shows up at his gym and begins working out. He does nothing but ignore her or order her to leave-she has no real training and, at 31, is too old to start-but still she continues; for her, boxing is the only thing that makes her otherwise bleak life worthwhile. Eventually, with the encouragement of Eddie, Frankie relents and begins to train her.

Against all odds, Maggie proves to be a natural at the sport and is soon knocking out all opponents in the first few seconds of her fights. She is so good, in fact, that Eddie secretly tries to steer her towards another, better connected, manager; Frankie’s flaw has been that he brings his fighters along too slowly and cautiously and Eddie doesn’t want Maggie’s shot to be ruined as a result. However, Maggie is as determined out of the ring as in it and sticks with Frankie as her fame continues to grow. Before long, she is ready to battle for the world championship against a fierce, fearsome opponent.

To this point, “Million Dollar Baby” is a lean and effective example of the kind of classical filmmaking style that few filmmakers besides Eastwood even attempt these days; instead of rushing the story along or using flashy editing or cinematography, he allows things to play out at their own speed in a loose, unhurried manner. The three central performances are excellent-Eastwood and Freeman, as they showed in “Unforgiven”, play well off of each other and only need a couple of scenes to suggest the lifetime of history that their characters have shared. Swank, whose career since winning the Oscar for her work in “Boys Don’t Cry”, more than holds her own with the veterans and she is also fearsomely convincing in the physically demanding boxing sequences. There are a few moments that don’t quite work-a subplot about a mentally challenged kid who hangs out at the gym and a visit to Maggie’s unpleasant white-trash family feel like tacked-on distractions-but for every one of those, there is an equally memorable bit to be had from crowd-pleasing moments like Eddie having fight #110 to the oddly graceful sight of waitress Maggie practicing her footwork while serving customers.

It is at this point that Eastwood pulls out his surprise punch and reveals the true reason why he chose to make the film. To reveal anything about this development would be a crime but it not only sends the film in new and surprising directions, it gives everything that we have seen a deeper resonance-even the moments that seemed pointless before now take on a new dimension as the reasons for their existence finally become clear. Most importantly, the three actors shift their game into a higher gear as well and come up with some of the best work that they have ever done on-screen. The final scenes between Eastwood and Swank are incredibly moving without pushing the pathos and Freeman is their equal as the observer to the proceedings-the voice-over narration that he delivers is one of the best examples of that particular narrative device, usually the last refuge of the lazy screenwriter, that I have ever heard.

Even though he has been, despite a string of lackluster efforts in the wake of his “Unforgiven” triumph, one of the most interesting and dependable American filmmakers, Clint Eastwood still doesn’t quite get the respect as a director that he deserves. His work here is masterful-there is never a single wasted moment or false note-and the way that he handles the tricky closing scenes is astounding for the way that he provokes any number of strong emotions without ever overtly pushing or manipulating the audience to feel any particular way. More importantly, even though he is moving into somewhat uncharted territory as a director here, he never lets any sense of strain show (unlike works like “Bird” and the overrated “Mystic River”, where he was almost paralyzed by his efforts to create Art); his work here is as natural and unforced as anything he has done and it is easily his best film since “Unforgiven”.

It is a funny thing about Clint Eastwood as a director. Sometimes he tries too hard to make a Great Movie and the results have been lifeless drags-recall his mystifying “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil”. Other times, he simply bangs out a movie simply for the sake of doing one and gives viewers the slipshod likes of “The Rookie”, “True Crime” or “Blood Work”. Because he only began shooting “Million Dollar Baby” in the late summer and it was a last-second addition to the winter Oscar derby (even “Entertainment Weekly”, the Warner Brothers house organ, didn’t have it listed in their fall/winter preview), I went into the screening fearing that it would be another one of his slapdash efforts. Two hours later, I left stunned and realizing that no matter how rapidly he might have put it together, it was clearly the kind of story that he wanted to tell for a long time before finding the proper vehicle for it. The result is a genuine masterpiece-the kind of Clint Eastwood film that even Pauline Kael herself might have had kind words for.